Our Life Story | Chapter 32 – The unexpected happened…
Our trip continues to head East straight through Texas. Leaving the city El Paso to drive too our next destination the Guadalupe Mountains. A couple of hours drive through the desert like landscapes of Texas.
After driving for about an hour we ran into a police immigration checkpoint. No worries for us since we have all of our documents in order.
About 2 min after we left the checkpoint we drove past a sign that said: Next gas station 125 miles. While we we’re driving past I looked at the fuel gauge in our car and immediately thought, Luuk you are an idiot…
I totally forgot to check how much fuel we had left before driving away from El Paso, we quickly stopped on the side of the road to see where the first gas station was to refuel. Damn,.. Almost 50 miles back where we came from, all the way back to the city. We didn’t had any other options than to turn back since we did not have enough fuel to reach the other gas station 125 miles the other way.
This detour took us at least 1.5 hours, but we we’re still in good spirits. Got some strange faces from the police officers after driving through the checkpoint for the second time though, haha
We arrived at the beautiful Guadalupe Mountains and found a great campsite somewhat later that evening. When we we’re looking for someone to change our 20 dollar bill to pay for our tent site which was only 8 dollars, we met a lovely couple who didn’t had enough to break our 20 dollar bill but kindly donated us 8 dollars so we could pay for the camp site.
Guess they won’t be reading this but if they do, Thank you very much!
We set up our tent and Sacha started cooking her famous Spaghetti A la Camping 😊 While eating we got company from a couple of deer’s running by. Living outside and enjoying the beauty of nature doesn’t get any better than this!
We emptied a bottle of wine and quickly hit the sack after an exhausting day. After sleeping for about an hour we both woke up from a slight tapping on our tent, insects?? NO,… Rain! In the desert, lol.
We had a bit of a laugh about it and quickly returned to our sleeping, only to wake up about 5 min later by probably the worst thunder, rain and hailstorm we ever experienced. Within 45 minutes the water surrounding our tent came up to about 10 cm high and started pouring in our tent.
We had no option but to run too our car and find a dry spot to hopefully get just a little bit more sleep. So we did,.. not so comfortable but at least dry. Not the most fun experience but certainly one for in our travelling journal.
Go to Arkansas... not Louisiana. When you hit I-20, follow to I-30, then head towards the Ozarks. You'll thank me later.
Just your friendly travel guide. I know that area well! What was supposed to be your next destination? You're about to get into some cityscapes, and I can help either way you go.
Have fun, welcome to Texas!
You will need a weather app for Texas weather! Yes, I used to camp near there. While hail is a bit less common as you head west of Fort Worth, please understand that the Dallas/Fort Worth area might have (according to insurance companies) the highest rate of hail anywhere in the world. It's almost certainly the most populated area with such common hail.
I used to camp about 300 miles or so from where I think you are. There is essentially only hot spring days and enormous thunderstorms that time of year. I have some relatives from West Texas, so I know the area a bit. Our tents were not Wal-Mart specials... they were built to withstand Texas thunderstorms, because I stayed dry inside them. Canvas still has advantage over ripstop nylon. LOL
Please tell where you're headed! I resteemed you. Hope you make it to a drier spot. This year has had a lot of harsh storms. You will probably not see more violent storms anywhere you travel. Draw an elliptical circle around El Paso to Miami and then visit in June.... I know you get some fierce Atlantic storms in the Netherlands, but you are in tornado alley.... if you look around, you will see actual tornado shelters in most medium to large towns, although most are 50+ years old by now.
Wow thanks a lot for your very in/depth comment! We´re now in New orleans and probably will stay here for a day or two. After this we will driving a bit more north too memphis, and tennessee. Thanks for the Texas weather app tip! We will be carefull around tornado alley :)
Have fun! There are some interesting roads over in Tennessee. I think if you google "tail of the dragon" you'll see it. Once you cross the Mississippi River, the bulk of what you see is cities and tourist traps. :) For the latter, you should try Gatlinburg!
You heading towards Florida?
Yes we are, kinda waiting for the weather to clear a bit in Florida, we've got until 22of june to get in miami. Got a plane leaving from miami to curacao on that date :)
Then if I was to give you advice (and why not? LOL) then I would say to visit the Gulf Coast of Florida. The water is exquisitely beautiful... not quite like Curacao, but it is great. In other words, Daytona Beach (east side) is... well... the same Atlantic you know. While the area around Clearwater (west side)... is nice, warm, and the beaches are less crowded. So when you get to Orlando, head west to that coast. You might want to check out Cape Canaveral on the other side, but you just drove through Houston and the Alabama area where a lot of the best NASA exhibits are. (The Johnson Space Center is the place for people interested in NASA, and it's in Houston.)
When you get to Orlando (the most touristy spot outside of Las Vegas in the entire hemisphere), you could spend weeks seeing all the tourist attractions. The kiddies have their attractions, but there are more "mature" places, too, if you know where to look.
Central Florida is great. That should be everyone's target for some vacation time in a tour of the US. And since you are going to Curacao, you may not miss much in south Florida (Miami or the Florida Keys). I do hear Miami at night rivals Orlando and other places.
Buy a good umbrella for Florida or dress for rain!
I love travelling! Unexpected things happen! Weather channel app might help!
Yes, that sure is the beauty of travelling! Thanks for taking the time to comment :) Hava a great day!
I miss this type of life style.... I used to buy 1 way amtrak tickets, and decided where to next after I got sick of where ever I was. Those were the days.....
Its quite amazing how life life can get. We sure love it !
not really, i haven't experience that much.... but i enjoy travelling... thanks for sharing
Doing what you love is the most important thing. Travel more and i'm sure you will do an see many wonderfull things! Thank you for commenting :)
it is my pleasure
I do enjoy traveling too.